Chris Wood is hoping that he and striker Ashley Barnes will get the opportunity to resurrect a partnership that was first formed seven years ago.

The pair often lined up together for Brighton during the 2010/11 campaign and they fired the Seagulls to the League One title, scoring 26 times between them.

The duo had lined up alongside each other on occasions this season - with Wood netting against Spurs at Wembley and again against West Ham at Turf Moor.

Injury to the New Zealand international and changes in formation had curtailed that combination somewhat but they were reunited for the second half of Saturday’s victory over Everton with great effect.

Barnes cancelled out Cenk Tosun’s first goal for the Toffees, thumping the ball past Three Lions stopper Jordan Pickford before Wood marked his return with a late header from a Johann Berg Gudmundsson corner.

The 26-year-old record signing from Leeds United, who had been sidelined since Christmas, said: “It’s very good to be be back, you miss it when you’re not playing.

“It’s frustrating not being able to help the lads and not being able to contribute, it’s frustrating in general being injured, most players have been through it. It’s just not nice.

“It took a couple of setbacks, which was unfortunate, then it rolled into a longer one than we were expecting, which was frustrating for the staff and for me personally, I was gutted to be out for so long.

“It hurts to be out, but it’s nice to be back and a good run at the end of the season would be lovely.”

With Burnley’s forwards fighting it out for the honour of finishing as the club’s top scorer in the Premier League, he added: “For any player it’s just important to get back playing again.

“Scoring for a striker comes naturally and it will do to any striker, as long as you get the chances and get enough game time you will score goals.

“It’s nice to come back with a goal but more importantly it’s nice to have the three points in the bag.

“Hopefully we can both kick on now and finish in double figures. We’ll both work hard, we’ve got Vokesy pushing up behind us and Nahki, with Walts coming back.

“I’ve known Barnesy a long time now, we played together at Brighton and we had a good partnership there, so hopefully we can keep going.

“I just don’t think defenders like playing against Barnesy. I’d hate to play against him.

“We all have different elements to our game, he’s a very strong-minded character and he’s fantastic in that way.

“It’s nice that we can hopefully cause a lot more problems between now and the end of the season. He’s still exactly the same, he hasn’t changed one bit, he’s still a brilliant lad. He’s great.”

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